Modern computer systems require robust and reliable cryptographic systems to maintain system security in a variety of contexts, such as data storage and data communication. In many modern computer systems, particularly those running in distributed and/or virtualized computing environments, computer system processes may issue a number of cryptographic keys, may subscribe to a number of other cryptographic keys and may use these cryptographic keys to maintain system security and/or integrity. In such systems, effective and secure cryptographic key management presents numerous challenges, particularly in systems that use public cryptographic key systems. The value of a public cryptographic key may increase by making the cryptographic key broadly available, but broadly distributing cryptographic keys may make it difficult to manage and/or to later revoke those cryptographic keys. Additionally, many cryptographic key systems have a single trusted authority for managing the revocation of a public cryptographic key. Single trusted authorities may lead to system slowdowns and even system shutdowns if the trusted authority becomes overwhelmed by requests to revoke public keys or to check if a key has been revoked. Single trusted authorities may also lead to system shutdowns if the authority host becomes unavailable due to communications problems, maintenance issues and/or other such system concerns. This is because the processes that rely on the availability of cryptographic keys are frequently system critical processes that cannot be suspended and if these processes are significantly delayed, the entire system can be impacted.